As described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,438,717 to Tylke for an Anesthesia Intubating Forceps, the disclosure of which is herein incorporated by reference in its entirety, medical professionals have used various tools and implements in their treatment of patients that involve insertion of a catheter into a patient, including oral or nasal endotracheal intubation, during which the medical professional typically inserts a nasal or oral endotracheal tube into the trachea to assist with ventilation for the patient.
In order to assist with endotracheal intubation, an implement, such as forceps, is used by the medical professional to guide and/or direct the catheter/endotracheal tube into the proper place. A laryngoscope may also be used during nasal and oral endotracheal intubation to depress and secure the patient's tongue and lift the jaw to expose the vocal cords. When the patient's head is tilted back, as is done during the intubation procedure, and the tongue and jaw are lifted securely, the medical professional performing the intubation should have an unobstructed view of the patient's vocal cords, provided there are no foreign objects or fluids in the patient's mouth. However, when the medical professional inserts placing forceps into the patient's mouth, the view is severely obstructed by his or her hand and by the forceps themselves. Pre-existing forceps did not permit a clear view of the area of concern, nor allow the medical professional to grasp and control the tube adequately, making endotracheal intubation difficult and time-consuming, which could mean the difference between life and death for a patient that requires assistance with ventilation.
In endotracheal intubation situations, a key problem with many medical forceps is that the medical professional is required to grip or grab the nasally or orally-inserted catheter or tube in the back of the pharynx and try to place the tube through the patient's vocal cords by frequently gripping, releasing and re-gripping the lubricated catheter or tube, which is also coated with nasal and oral secretions and possibly blood in a traumatic situation. These forceps frequently have serrated edges or teeth, which used to assist in gripping antiquated rubber catheter tubes but also can snag, catch on or tear the soft tissues inside the patient's mouth and throat and damage the patient's vocal cords. Even if the patient is not harmed, these sharp edges on the forceps can rupture the insuflation balloon while attempting to grab the lower end of an endotracheal tube during a potentially difficult tube placement procedure, which must be inflated once the endotracheal tube is inserted past the patient's vocal cords to create an air-tight seal with the trachea and allow for positive pressure ventilation.
Tylke ‘717 identifies a need to provide catheter-guiding forceps that allow a medical professional to have easy access to difficult-to-reach areas of a patient's body, such as in an oral or nasal endotracheal intubation, while simultaneously allowing the medical professional to have an unobstructed or virtually unobstructed view of the area in the patient's body in which the medical professional is working, such as the patient's glottis or vocal cords. As a result, forceps were provided with a pair of scissor-like handles that are pivotally connected to each other and that continue past the pivot to form a pair of arms with at least two bends in the handles immediately before the pivot. As a result, the medical professional is allowed to place the distal, guiding end of the forceps in a desirable location within the pharynx while simultaneously permitting a desirable view of the area of concern, particularly, in the circumstance under discussion, the patient's vocal cords, because the medical professional's hand holding the forceps is not in a line of sight of the area through which the tube is to be placed while using the forceps. During endotracheal intubation, the medical professional places the forceps in registry with the patient's oropharynx (i.e., the back of the throat). Then, the catheter (e.g. endotracheal tube) can be guided through the forceps and past the patient's vocal cords through the glottis (i.e., the aperture through the vocal cords), where ventilation is optimized. As a result, the medical professional does not have to grip and re-grip the catheter tube during this process, saving critical time from passing in a potentially life-threatening circumstance, and eliminating the risk of harm to the patient vocal cords and adjacent tissue as well as the catheter or tube that re-gripping may cause.
While improvements to then known forceps were provided, including satisfying a need for forceps that allow a catheter tube to easily pass through the forceps tip instead of requiring frequent re-gripping of the slippery catheter tube, there continues to be a need to allow the medical professional to efficiently manipulate the endotracheal tube while minimizing the potential for harm to the patient.